Loulé Criativos Artist of the Month: Jina Nebe
I always love meeting someone who sees the world differently. People who do the same things we all do but look at them through a completely unique lens, finding new angles and perspectives on what some might call ‘ordinary’, and who, in the case of this month’s artist, always take the window seat.
When I first arrived at the Palácio Gama Lobo, headquarters of Loulé Criativo, and saw the artwork of artist, architect, photographer and musician Jina Nebe, I’ll admit, I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. It was beautiful and intriguing, yes. But where did all those shapes and lines come from?
Well, her surname, Nebe,means heaven or sky in Czech, and the more I learned about Jina, the more this seemed to be the answer. But that’s enough clues. I’ll leave you to try and work it out for yourselves for just a little bit longer. First, let’s take a step back and get a quick birds eye view of Jina’s life.
Stairway to heaven
Jina was born in Prague during the communist era, a time when creative expression was often stifled. Thanks to her grandfather, who was an amateur realist painter, and her choir-singer father, she found a love for both art and music. By the age of ten she was learning classical guitar and, in her teens, she studied under Czech surrealist painter Ladislav Motl, mastering descriptive geometry, art history and the art of drawing fluid, natural lines.
It was also during her teens that she fell in love with rock and roll. Western music was strictly forbidden, so records were secretly copied onto tapes and passed around – making it all the more thrilling. She lit up telling me about her favourite artists. “I love Frank Zappa!” she said. And she even taught herself to play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on guitar.
At the age of 18, she joined a rock band and, by 21, she had co-founded the first female jazz trio of the Original Prague Syncopated Orchestra. But instead of pursuing music or painting, Jina chose architecture – realising she could listen to music while she worked. A scholarship took her to La Villette School of Architecture in Paris, and she went on to help construct transatlantic ships in Saint-Nazaire.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she took on a role coordinatingtechnical cooperation for 11 Central European countries, which led her to Brussels, followed by work as a quality assurance consultant to healthcare institutions in France, Belgium and the Czech Republic.
A lover of poetry – especially Dylan Thomas – it’s not surprising that she is married to a Portuguese poet and former diplomat. Quite the life to sum up! But one thing was clear: lots of travelling. And it’s through those travels that we arrive back at her artwork …
Heaven on Earth
If you’ve ever been on an airplane with Jina, she’s the lady in the back seat, far away from the wings, camera at the ready – strategically placed for the perfect shot. While most of us glance out the window without much thought, Jina sees the land below as a canvas.For her, the world is an impressionist painter creating its own masterpieces, and her role is simply to catch them.
During her travels, she began photographing these landscapes from above, noticing the way natural and man-made features formed ready-made compositions. She captured these patterns in the dunes of the deserts of Chad, Ethiopia and Iraq, as well as the coastal landscapes of Mauritius, Lanzarote and the Azores.
Mountains and lagoons
Fast forward to today. With a home near Tavira, Jina still splits her time between the Algarve, Paris and Brussels. Her flights in and out of the Algarve deepened her fascination with the region’s landscapes – particularly the Ria Formosa’s winding lagoons and the striking geometry of the salt pans.
She was also mesmerised by the rolling mountain range of the Serra do Caldeirão, which stretches between Loulé, São Brás de Alportel, Tavira and Alcoutim, forming a natural border with the Alentejo. Jina explained to me how this rugged terrain is covered in rockrose bushes – stunning in bloom but highly flammable. To help prevent fire, there are countless dirt paths all across the valleys that serve as protection against flames spreading but also, from Jinas’s perspective, offer a beautiful contrast when seen from the sky.
From sky to surface
In 2020, Jina began her residency with Loulé Criativos Design Lab, where she set out to push her concept further – experimenting with ways to translate the natural abstract compositions of her aerial photographs onto different materials.
She showed me her collection of hand-painted azulejos (tiles) inspired by the Serra do Caldeirão. Each set of four can be rotated to form new patterns, making them perfect for kitchens and bathrooms – bringing a touch of the Algarve’s landscape indoors.
Jina has also worked with cork and textiles, using linocut and silk-screen printing techniques to transfer her abstract patterns onto everything from towels to napkins. Some of her designs feature the wild and winding hills of the Serra do Caldeirão, while others portray the geometric beauty of the salt pans. She even has a collection of napkins with designs based on a broken dish found in the archaeological excavations of the Islamic baths in Loulé.
I was delighted to see the results of her recent collaboration with bookbinder Juliett Paulo, who you may remember from one of my previous articles, ‘The Spellbinding Bookbinder’. Jina stitched salt pan patterns into paper, which Juliett then bound into lovely little books. Each book contains its own carefully selected Portuguese poem about the Ria Formosa – something I guessed correctly had a little bit of input from Jina’s husband.
Look with eyes that really see
Meeting Jina has forever changed the way I’ll look out of an airplane window – and perhaps even how I see the world around me. Jina told me that Leonardo da Vinci’s advice for young artists would be to stare at a wall. If you look long enough, patterns and inspiration will inevitably emerge. The world is full of beauty, hidden in plain sight – sometimes in plane sight. You just have to look for it.
Instagram:@jinanebe
